This paper studies the effect of corruption on foreign direct investment. The sample covers bilateral investment from twelve source countries to 45 host countries. There are two central findings. First, a rise in either the tax rate on multinational firms or the corruption level in a host country reduces inward foreign direct investment (FDI). In a benchmark estimation, an increase in the corruption level from that of Singapore to that of Mexico would have the same negative effect on inward FDI as raising the tax rate by fifty percentage points. Second, American investors are averse to corruption in host countries, but not necessarily more so than average OECD investors, in spite of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977.

[This article studies whether the volume and composition of capital flows affect the degree of credit crunch during the 2007—2009 crisis. Using data on 3,823 firms in 24 emerging countries, we find that, on average, the decline in stock prices was more severe for firms that are intrinsically more dependent on external finance for working capital. Interestingly, while the volume of capital flows per se has no significant effect, the composition matters a lot. In particular, greater dependence on non-FDI capital inflows before the crisis worsens the credit crunch during the crisis, while exposure to FDI alleviates the liquidity constraint.]

Does country transparency affect international portfolio investment? We examine this question by constructing new measures of transparency and by making use of a unique microdata set on portfolio holdings of emerging market funds around the world. We distinguish between government and corporate transparency. There is clear evidence that funds systematically invest less in less transparent countries. Moreover, funds have a greater propensity to exit nontransparent countries during crises.

This article studies whether the volume and composition of capital flows affect the degree of credit crunch during the 2007–2009 crisis. Using data on 3,823 firms in 24 emerging countries, we find that, on average, the decline in stock prices was more severe for firms that are intrinsically more dependent on external finance for working capital. Interestingly, while the volume of capital flows per se has no significant effect, the composition matters a lot. In particular, greater dependence on non-FDI capital inflows before the crisis worsens the credit crunch during the crisis, while exposure to FDI alleviates the liquidity constraint.

The US trade war against China can either enhance or diminish American soft power in China, depending on whether Chinese citizens view it as legitimate. We study how US movie viewership, a measure of American soft power, responds to the trade war. We find a significantly greater reduction in US movie viewership in regions more exposed to the Trump tariffs, but no corresponding decline in non-US movies. The decline is stronger for action and drama movies, which tend to embody greater perceived “Americanness.” Survey data also show a sharper decline in trust in Americans in more tariff-exposed regions.

The high and rising household savings rate in China is not easily reconciled with the traditional explanations that emphasize life cycle factors, the precautionary saving motive, financial development, or habit formation. This paper proposes a new competitive saving motive: as the sex ratio rises, Chinese parents with a son raise their savings in a competitive manner in order to improve their son's relative attractiveness for marriage. The pressure on savings spills over to other households. Both cross-regional and household-level evidence supports this hypothesis. This factor can potentially account for about half the actual increase in the household savings rate during 1990-2007.

Tax evasion, by its very nature, is difficult to observe. We quantify the effects of tax rates on tax evasion by examining the relationship in China between the tariff schedule and the "evasion gap," which we define as the difference between Hong Kong's reported exports to China at the product level and China's reported imports from Hong Kong. Our results imply that a one-percentage-point increase in the tax rate is associated with a 3 percent increase in evasion. Furthermore, the evasion gap is negatively correlated with tax rates on closely related products, suggesting that evasion takes place partly through misclassification of imports from higher-taxed categories to lower-taxed ones, in addition to underreporting the value of imports.

It is often asserted that a flexible exchange rate regime would facilitate current account adjustment. Using data on over 170 countries over the 1971–2005 period, we examine this assertion systematically. We find no strong, robust, or monotonic relationship between exchange rate regime flexibility and the rate of current account reversion, even after accounting for the degree of economic development and trade and capital account openness. This finding presents a challenge to the Friedman (1953) hypothesis and a popular policy recommendation by international financial institutions.